


Isolation

by INMH



Series: The Fruits of Mercy [2]
Category: The Order: 1886
Genre: (More like friends to enemies to kind-of-friends again), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Enemies to Friends, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, Post-Game(s), Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-08 16:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11650299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Sequel to Mercy, but you don’t have to read it to understand this. Grayson and Alastair escape London and find themselves alone, in hiding for the remainder of the winter.





	1. December

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for this was 'purgatory'; In this sense, I’m interpreting purgatory in a more colloquial way; i.e. limbo, or period of time/a place where nothing of special importance is happening.

**_DECEMBER_ **  
  
**[-The Twenty-Sixth Day of December, 1886-]**

* * *

  
This was not what Grayson had been planning.  
  
In fairness, when he’d decided to let Alastair live and help him escape from the catacombs, Grayson hadn’t exactly been planning so much as he was winging it and hoping for the best. It ran contradictory to his nature to be so impulsive, but then, he’d been doing a lot of things lately that ran contradictory to what he would normally do, so there was no point in bemoaning it.  
  
They’ve found a small town- more like a smattering of houses that happened to be positioned near one another- some miles away from London; small enough that neither of them recognized it, or knew why it was abandoned.  
  
“Cholera,” Alastair had muttered, leaning on a dilapidated wall as Grayson poked around. “If I had to guess.”  
  
“Better not drink the water, then,” Grayson grunted, looking down into the well that stood in the front yard of a house.  
  
“The wells should be fine,” Alastair remarked. “It’s the river we should be avoiding.”  
  
As if they had a choice.  
  
The escape from London had been a narrow thing, due in no small part to the fact that Grayson had beaten the living hell out of Alastair during their brawl in Tesla’s laboratory, and the man had been pale and dizzy and hobbling ever since the catacombs and the Underground. They’d managed to dodge Knights and United India Company Men, and Grayson had killed one Company Man in order to procure some proper clothing for Alastair. Naked men with little more than a coat to cover themselves tended to stand out, whether in the city or the countryside.  
  
The Knight- the _Lycan_ had some of his color back now, in part due to the Blackwater that Grayson had given him, but not nearly enough to counteract the constant movement and exhaustion. Still, the Blackwater was one thing to be thankful for, even in their exile and disgrace: As long as they had blood, they would have the Blackwater to keep them alive and fighting.  
  
And the last few weeks had proven, if nothing else, that both Grayson and Alastair had blood to spare.  
  
Grayson settled on a house that seemed decently structurally sound and rapped it with his knuckles. “Here. This one.”  
  
What followed, once Alastair and Grayson had taken up residence in the rundown house, was three months of hiding.  
  
And not much else.

 

* * *

**[-The Thirty-First Day of December, 1886-]**

* * *

  
Silence.  
  
For five days, they barely spoke save for the essentials: ‘I’m getting food’ or ‘Your bandages need changing’ or ‘there aren’t any half-breeds that frequent this area, are there?’  
  
From those examples, one might conclude that it was Grayson doing most of the talking.  
  
And one would be right.  
  
Alastair had been mostly silent since they’d left the city and that hadn’t changed since they’d been in the old house for nearly a week. Grayson wasn’t sure what to make of it: Was it that Alastair was avoiding contact because he’d already accepted that they would likely be enemies once they parted ways, or was it because he was still exhausted from his injuries? Grayson hadn’t recovered all that quickly after his stint in the prison, or his swim in the Thames.  
  
It was the former that had him concerned. Alastair didn’t seem to harbor any hostile intentions towards him- but then, he hadn’t seemed to when they’d teamed up to infiltrate the United India Company’s place, had he? Whatever the case, Grayson was wary; this was not the Alastair he had known for centuries. This was not an Alastair he knew and could predict with reasonable certainty.  
  
This was a stranger that had tried to kill him and now stood on diametrically opposite sides of the war.  
  
Or at least, that was what Grayson had to assume for the time being, if he didn’t want another ugly surprise from his old comrade: Alastair maintained that there was more to the half-breeds (or at least the Lycans) than Grayson or the Order realized, and while Grayson was curious as to that claim, he also knew Alastair’s devotion to them made him dangerous until they could reach an understanding.  
  
At present, Grayson glanced over at Alastair’s motionless form and on the bandages he’d managed to make from torn fabric found (and boiled clean) in the house. The splotches on the fabric were dark, but Grayson winced when he saw that there were also yellowish blots as well.  
  
“I think I should change your bandages,” Grayson muttered. It occurred to him that it was mad to be assisting a man who’d betrayed and attempted to murder him (twice) and sentenced him to weeks of torture, but aside from the fact that Grayson had already gone through the beastly effort of saving the man’s life in the first place… He couldn’t deny that he had a certain level of curiosity about Alastair’s claims that the half-breeds were no worse than humanity.  
  
Two months ago, he would have dismissed it as the hollow, misguided protests of a radical half-breed.  
  
Now, in this time and place, knowing what he knew of the Rebels and the Order, Grayson was less comfortable with dismissing the claim wholesale.  
  
And if he were ever to learn more truths, Alastair- as badly as his betrayal had stung- was his best avenue to learning them.  
  
The younger man- who was lying on his side, with his back to his elder- made a small motion with his shoulders, something like a shrug that lacked the appropriate energy to look right. Grayson had become accustomed to that particular bit of body-language, and had it tentatively translated as ‘do whatever you please, Grayson, because I don’t give enough of a fuck to stop you’.  
  
So Grayson set into the highly unpleasant work of peeling off the cloth bandages and replacing them with new ones. As he suspected, the yellow spots were pus- which was alarming, because the Blackwater should have healed the injury enough to prevent them from getting this badly infected.  
  
“How do you feel?” Grayson inquired.  
  
Alastair did the half-shrug. Again. And with only his back visible, it was impossible to read his expression.  
  
Grayson’s nerves were fraying. “Words, Lucan. I need _words._ ”  
  
“Like I’ve been run over by a Gold State Coach.” Alastair’s voice was scratchy and dry. “Leave it, Galahad. I’ll live.”  
  
“Not if the infection gets worse.” Grayson didn’t mean for that to sound as glib as it came out, but Alastair shook his head.  
  
“I’m a Lycan, Gray. We don’t die easily.”  
  
It felt like forever since anyone had referred to him as ‘Gray’. And it occurred to Grayson that those incidents might be fewer and farther between from now on, unless by some chance he became exceptionally friendly with Lakshmi and Devi.  
  
**_DONG!_**  
  
Grayson’s body spasmed sharply with alarm. “ _Whore’s son!_ ” He barked.  
  
The one thing in the house that still worked was the grandfather clock in the next room. It didn’t work perfectly- some hours it didn’t make any noise at all, and so that meant that it was easy to forget about and therefore easy to be startled by when it decided it wanted to loudly sound the hour.  
  
Alastair snorted. “Still on edge, I see.”  
  
Grayson glared at him. “And whose fault is that?”  
  
The younger ex-Knight rolled slightly so that his face was visible- he was dangerously pale, gaunt, and a thin sheet of sweat hinting a fever. He looked at Grayson with blank, emotionless, red-rimmed eyes that had always been so sharp and lively before. Grayson missed that; less so the way Alastair used to look than the way things used to _be_ before everything went to hell in a hand-basket.  
  
“Happy New Year, Galahad,” Alastair murmured dryly, and rolled over to go back to sleep.


	2. January

**_JANUARY_**  
  
**[-The Fifth Day of January, 1887-]**

* * *

  
“Oh Christ.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Alastair dragged himself off the bed and joined Grayson by the window. His energy was better, but he was still feverish, and standing less than a foot apart Grayson could feel the heat radiating off him.  
  
The older man glared out at the thick snow that had blanketed the ground overnight and shook his head. “Fuck me, it’s easily a meter deep. We can’t travel in this.”  
  
“It’s still coming, too,” Alastair noted hoarsely, watching as more snow drifted down from above. “And given how cold it is, I doubt it’ll be melting off anytime soon…” He swayed slightly, blinking, and he half-fell, half-lowered himself to the floor beside the window. “Fuck.”  
  
Grayson knelt down beside him. “Dizzy?”  
  
Alastair shook his head, but it was in a decidedly unstable way. “I’m fine.”  
  
“No, you’re not,” Grayson said, trying to keep the aggravation from his voice. After all the trouble he’d gone through keeping him alive during their escape, he wasn’t about to let the man die of infection now. He pulled up the edge of Alastair’s shirt and, without giving it too much thought, peeled back one of the bandages.  
  
That was a mistake.  
  
Alastair’s arm came up too quickly for Grayson to track, and suddenly he was flying, his back hitting the wall, muscle and bone screaming from the impact. He might be sick, but Christ, Alastair still had a Lycan’s strength, and he wasn’t above using it, either. He was panting, half-crouched on the floor, a fresh sweat breaking out over his face. He’d gone paper-white, save for the specks of black that were fading from his face; apparently the pain of the infected wound beneath the bandage had been worse than Grayson had realized.  
  
“Sorry,” Alastair whispered, and it sounded sincere enough. “I didn’t mean to do that.”  
  
Grayson nodded, and winced when his neck ached. He popped open his vial of Blackwater and downed some of it, noting that it needed a little blood later to replenish his stock. When he looked up again, Alastair had dragged himself back over to the bed, hauling himself back into it like he’d just moved miles instead of meters. He rolled over and did not meet Grayson’s eyes again.  
  
The older man looked out the window grimly. The snow was so deep and falling so heavily, there was no chance that they would be going anywhere significant for a good, long while. And it occurred to him that if Alastair did not die, he would eventually get better; and if he did so before the snow melted, Grayson would have no chance of escaping if Alastair decided that it would be more prudent for Grayson to die.  
  
Grayson liked to think the man wouldn’t do that after saving his life, but the last few weeks had proven that he couldn’t trust Alastair for much anymore.  
  
“I’m going to step out,” He said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “If I can hunt something before the snow gets too deep, we should avoid starving in the next week or two.”  
  
Alastair said nothing, and Grayson left.  
  
These would be a long few weeks.

 

* * *

**[-The Seventeenth Day of January, 1887-]**

* * *

  
As Alastair’s condition gradually improved, and he and Grayson had more time to meditate on their situation, it was inevitable that some amount of ugly conversation would be had. Being stuck in the house with the man responsible for Grayson’s exile from the Order and from London, with very little to do but think, was conducive to conflict.  
  
Grayson was of two minds: On one hand, Alastair’s betrayal had deeply, deeply hurt- physically and emotionally. If one could not trust a man they’d known for centuries, who could they trust? And that that betrayal had sent Grayson to the dungeons to be repeatedly tortured, drowned by malicious guards, made it even worse; he dreamt of the torture most nights, and it didn’t make it better that the man responsible for it was lying a few meters away, weak and so _very_ vulnerable to vengeance.  
  
On the other hand, the man responsible for it was someone Grayson had known since they were both young; Alastair had been something like five or six years old, solemn and dedicated to his father’s instructions when Grayson had met him some five and half centuries ago; Grayson had been something like thirteen, too tall for his age and so impulsive that it had driven Sebastien to distraction.  
  
For centuries, they were comrades.  
  
Brothers.  
  
Friends.  
  
And as badly as Grayson wanted to just _punch_ the bastard for betraying him and the Order, it was difficult to reconcile the two people, Alastair the Friend and Alastair the Traitor. Grayson was bitter, but he couldn’t bring himself to act on that bitterness as he would with anyone outside of the Order.  
  
What made it all so much worse was that, due to physical weakness and surliness, Alastair hadn’t been in an especially talkative mood lately, and it was difficult for Grayson to figure out whether or not Alastair had relinquished any further desire to do him harm, or if he was simply waiting for a more opportune moment to do so. After all, if all of this shit had proven anything, it was that Alastair D’Argyll was an accomplished actor.  
  
The confrontation came after almost a month of being trapped in the house. The snow had only melted slightly, and they were stuck inside for the time-being, with nothing to do but sleep or poke around the house for things to do. Sleep tended to be the preferred option, mostly because it required less energy, and they were both running low on that due to the lack of food. Rationing what they had would be necessary until Grayson could kill something else for meat, as they had access to no other food for the time being.  
  
On that particular night, Grayson had been dozing in a chair at the table in the center of the room, chin falling towards his chest, mind caught in the cavern between sleeping and waking.  
  
And then he’d heard the howl.  
  
Grayson snapped awake immediately and looked toward the window. The curtain was drawn to hide the fact that there was a faint light coming from the house (the fire was always kept burning low; it was too cold without it), and Grayson was loath to pull it back for fear there would be Lycans prowling the land below.  
  
“Relax.” Alastair was looking at him from the bed, appearing a bit livelier than he had before. “It’s just a wolf.”  
  
“You’re certain?” Grayson inquired darkly, not certain he could trust Alastair to be truthful. “You’re sure it’s not one of your half-breed associates?”  
  
“It was a wolf,” Alastair assured. “I’m certain of it. And for the record, I’m not a half-breed- as far as I know, my ancestry is entirely Lycan.”  
  
Grayson rolled his eyes. “You know precisely what I mean by ‘half-breed’, Lucan.”  
  
“I do,” Alastair hummed, “But in the Lycan community ‘half-breed’ specifically denotes those who are of mixed Lycan-Human heritage- and it’s generally not a complimentary term. And as you are currently speaking to a Lycan, not a human, the terminology is imprecise.”  
  
Unexpectedly, Grayson’s temper spiked. “Have you always drawn such a thick, immovable line between yourself and humanity, Lucan, or has being free of the Order changed you so quickly?”  
  
Alastair gave a dark, hollow laugh. “I think I’ll let you parse that one out for yourself, Galahad.”  
  
“I suppose it’s a stupid question, given that you’ve no qualms with the slaughter of innocent people.”  
  
Alastair’s eyes flashed, and he sat up sharply on one elbow. “I have never killed innocents.”  
  
“But you’ve worked with people who do,” Grayson retorted without sympathy. “And that makes your hands just as bloody.”  
  
“As are yours,” Alastair purred with a sort of dark maliciousness. He really _was_ feeling better. “Or has the Rebel Queen appraised you of how many Rebels with good intentions you’ve killed over your years of working for the Order? Have you ever sat down and calculated how many men and women, simply trying to prevent us _half-breeds_ from hopping over the pond, whose deaths you are personally responsible for?”  
  
“Don’t redirect!” Grayson snapped. “I said that _your_ hands were bloody because you work with half-breeds like Hastings who slaughter unarmed civilians in Whitechapel. Answer me without deflection or attempts to remind me of my own guilt.”  
  
Alastair’s eyes met his, and this time they were bright and sharp. “Very well, then: I am no more pleased at Hastings’ activities in Whitechapel than Perceval was of the Lord Chancellor’s unwillingness to do something about it. Had I more power on my own merit amongst the Lycan or Vampire communities I might have cut ties with Hastings when I learned of what he was doing in Whitechapel, but here are times when we must sacrifice our personal morals and preferences to meet our higher goals; as it was, if I’d betrayed him, he would have alerted the Order to my status as a Lycan. Which I’m certain you all would have reacted so very _well_ to.”  
  
“I would have reacted better to learning it then than learning it after you’d betrayed me and tried to murder me,” Grayson responded flatly.  
  
Alastair chuckled flatly. “Keep telling yourself that, Galahad. You’d be amazed at how quickly friendships and brotherhoods can go to hell when one party finds out something unsavory about the other.”  
  
“And how would you know that?” Grayson snarled. He wasn’t especially fond of the sanctimony in Alastair’s voice; the man had never been haughty before- irate, straight-laced, serious, a stickler for rules, but never haughty or condescending (that was always the Lord Chancellor’s domain).  
  
Alastair’s gaze was unreadable. “I know because I’ve seen it, told of it by other Lycans- and experienced it myself. I myself spent over a hundred years of sitting back and watching my kind be slaughtered by humans when it was within my power to stop it, because I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t like them and had nothing in common with them.”  
  
It felt like bait, but Grayson took it anyway. “And how and when did you come to learn otherwise, I wonder?”  
  
Alastair looked at him with something hard and dark in his face.  
  
“You may never know, Galahad.”  
  
“Damn it, Lucan, I’m not a Knight anymore!” Grayson barked, slamming his hand down on the table and hearing the wood splinter under his fist. “You saw to that rather thoroughly, if you might recall? Around the time you sentenced me to death?”  
  
“The Lord Chancellor was the one who sentenced you, if I recall. And I’ll stop calling you Galahad when you stop calling me Lucan.”  
  
Grayson snorted, disgusted. “Your testimony, when you knew _damn well_ that you were lying, sentenced me.”  
  
“You would have done the same, if you were in my shoes.” It was the sheer lack of repentance in his voice that made it so infuriating.  
  
“You underestimate me,” Grayson hissed.  
  
“I estimate you just right,” Alastair snapped. “Or have you not been part of the Order for the last few hundred years? I don’t seem to remember you objecting to the Order’s methods of imprisoning and torturing criminals until _you_ had to experience it. I don’t recall you ever suggesting that we try to understand the Rebels, or why they appealed so much to the poor bastards living in Whitechapel, or work to find a solution for them that didn’t involve slaughtering them- or was it just easier to believe everything the Chancellor told you, that they were a bunch of lunatic radicals whose only desire was to slaughter civilians and sow chaos?  
  
“Did it even occur to you that the Rebel Queen was from India? Would you like a _list_ of the things the illustrious Queen Victoria and her government have done in India, to the local population? Or was _that_ easy to forget too?”  
  
Grayson said nothing.  
  
As much as he hated to say it- even if it _still_ did not erase Alastair’s responsibility for his actions- he had a point.  
  
“That’s what I thought,” Alastair sneered. “Passivity can be as ugly as aggression, _Galahad_ ; my passivity allowed my kind to be slaughtered for years before I decided to do something about it, and yours allowed Rebels with a decent cause to be slaughtered before it ever occurred to you to hear them out. My hands may be dirty, but you’re kidding yourself if you think yours or the Order’s are _clean_ just because you haven’t directly participated in some of the worst the British Government has to offer for its citizens.”  
  
Again, Grayson said nothing.  
  
“Nothing, _Galahad?_ Really?” Alastair asked with mock surprise. “Well, why don’t you ruminate on it for a bit.” He rolled over, a bit of body-language he’d been using for ‘the conversation is over now’.  
  
And still Grayson said nothing.  
  
After a few minutes, he stood up and went outside to cut firewood.  
  
It was one of the few things he could do for the moment that didn’t require him to think.

 

* * *

**[-The Twenty-Fourth Day of January, 1887-]**

* * *

  
They went back to their monosyllabic interactions after the fight.  
  
Grayson still stung, angry at Alastair for diminishing the damage he’d done to those around him, and angry at himself because Alastair was not wrong when he said that Grayson’s hands, by way of the Order and its work for the Queen and her Government, were not clean either.  
  
The Rebels were Godless Rebels, anarchists whose only goal was to destroy the Empire. Any methods they undertook to destroy them, and the half-breeds, whether it was being tortured in the catacombs under Westminster or being hunted down in the streets of Whitechapel. Of course there was nothing more to it than that; the Order was ancient and powerful in its wisdom. Obviously it was not wrong in its mission, its purpose, its support of the monarchy and the government it commanded.  
  
‘Passivity can be as ugly as aggression’, he’d said.  
  
But that hadn’t stopped him from passively allowing Hastings to murder those people in Whitechapel, now had it? The fact was that Alastair had used the time-honored method of reminding Grayson of every bad thing he’d ever participated in or failed to stop as a way of diminishing his own crimes.  
  
But he still wasn’t entirely wrong, and all of this was giving Grayson a massive headache.  
  
“Clarify one thing for me.”  
  
They found themselves in the same positions as they they’d been on the night of the argument a week before: Alastair in bed (getting better, but still weak) and Grayson (weakening from ennui, mental distress, and the continuing lack of food) seated at the table nearby, arms crossed.  
  
One gray-blue eye opened, and Alastair regarded Grayson without any visible emotion. He’d gotten a bit stronger, regained a little more of his infamous composure, and there was something unsettling about being in such close quarters with him; he was registering as a serious potential threat now. “What is it?”  
  
“Are the half… Are the Lycans and the Vampires of a same mind as the Rebels?”  
  
“How do you mean?”  
  
“Are your goals the same?”  
  
Alastair reached up and plucked a cobweb dangling above him on the wall, twisting the thin, wispy material between his fingers. “I suppose that would depend on what you think our goals to be,” He drawled. “The Rebels want an end to the current government and the institution of one more like the Americans’, am I right?”  
  
“Something like that, I suppose. They’re not anarchists- the last I’d heard from them, given how tightly the Order was starting to clamp down on London, they were actually starting to miss Queen Victoria. Apparently they consider her the lesser of two evils, now.”  
  
Alastair chuckled, and was then quiet for a moment or two as he considered his answer. “I won’t pretend everyone of my kind is on the side of the angels, Galahad. There are some Lycans who’ve gladly given themselves over to the more savage aspects of their nature: They maul, they kill, they terrorize. And they are the ones who paint the picture that the Order has in their minds of us. What they _don’t_ see are the families who hide in hovels, keeping their heads down so they don’t get shot. They don’t see the parents who keep their children in the house because they haven’t learned to control their transformations yet. They don’t see the ones who aren’t interested in a fight; why would they?”  
  
Grayson nodded slowly. Then something occurred to him. “I’ve known you nearly your whole life,” He said. “Did you ever do that? Transforming when you didn’t mean to?”  
  
Alastair stared at the ceiling, silent. Then he said, “A few times. But I’d learned rather quickly that half-breeds were despised, unholy creatures to be killed as soon as possible, and I learned quickly not to have those accidents, especially not when anyone else is around.”  
  
“That must have been terrifying,” Grayson whispered.  
  
“Utterly.” The word was spoken without an ounce of sarcasm.  
  
It was a wonder that this had occurred. It was a wonder that Alastair had endured that terror in the time that Grayson had known him, and again, his memories raced, trying to think of all the times he’d met with Alastair as a child and wondered if he’d been moments away from having an ‘accident’ then. It was difficult; the hundreds of years that had passed made it difficult to recall Alastair as anything but an adult, a comrade rather than the son of the Chancellor.  
  
“Did you really think we’d turn on you if you were revealed as a half-breed?”  
  
“I had no reason to think you wouldn’t. Our- The Order does not promote a great deal of kindness or understanding towards half-breeds, Galahad. If I’d ever been discovered I would have been ostracized and reviled at best, or killed at worst, for all the reasons my father gave you before.”  
  
Grayson wondered if what the Chancellor said, that the Order could not withstand the scandal of having a half-breed in its ranks, the son of the Chancellor no less, had any truth to it. Would the Order really have crumbled under the knowledge that the Chancellor had been harboring a Lycan? Training him, parenting him, loving him, allowing him into their hallowed ranks, letting him advance to the rank of Knight Commander?  
  
…Maybe.  
  
There was a certain hypocrisy to it, wasn’t there? That the Order’s mission was to exterminate the unholy half-breeds, a mission they’d all put their lives on the line (and lost) to carry out, and the Chancellor invited one of the enemy to sit in their ranks? At their table, with badges and sashes as a testimony to his service and honor on his chest? After all, what made Alastair any different from any other Lycan?  
  
Grayson grimaced. Unfortunately Alastair had, whether he’d meant to or not, only served to prove that point- by betraying the Order, slandering and imprisoning a fellow Knight, aiding an abetting a murderer, and prioritizing his status as a half-breed to his status as a Knight, he’d more or less proven that despite his years of service, despite being raised by the Chancellor, there really _wasn’t_ a difference between him and any other half-breed in the sense that he was an enemy to the Order.  
  
But what would Grayson have said if this had come out earlier? What if this had come out before Alastair had betrayed them (though in fairness, he had no idea when said betrayal had started), before he’d helped Hastings carry out his crimes? Grayson did his best to put himself back in a time where there had been nothing more complicated than Brotherhood and camaraderie between him and Alastair, and tried to think, with complete honesty, how he would feel if he’d been told Alastair was a half-breed back then.  
  
And the truth was this:  
  
He would have been suspicious.  
  
He would have been supportive of an investigation into Alastair’s activities to ensure he hadn’t compromised the Order.  
  
And yes, he would have looked at Alastair differently, knowing what he was, what he was capable of. For years the half-breeds had been called evil, unholy, man-eating monsters that were better off dead, for their sake and everyone else’s. But if anyone had called for Alastair’s imprisonment, his execution, for no other reason than that he was a Lycan…  
  
_It’s Alastair_ , Grayson could picture himself saying at the Council. _It’s just Alastair. My God, does years of faithful service mean **nothing?**_  
  
God, he hoped he’d have had the courage to say it. Because Grayson could very easily put ugly words to specific faces, people who would not have been so understanding, Chancellor’s son or not. Even if no one had called for his death, it was unquestionable that Alastair would have been stripped of his rank and removed from the Order- whether into prison or exile (prison more likely because of what Alastair knew), he would never have been allowed to stay.  
  
Alastair would have been removed from everything he’d loved, his friends and family, and everything he’d accomplished would be tainted by the fact that he had been born a Lycan and adopted by the Chancellor, who would also likely be investigated, given the secret he’d kept and the conflict of interest.  
  
Yes, Grayson could see it now.  
  
The Order may well fall apart, for the very conflict and confusion that Grayson felt now: not because of Alastair’s betrayal, but because for years and years they had had a Lycan serve faithfully amongst their ranks; Alastair had been trusted, beloved, respected. And if the Order crumbled from knowing he was a Lycan, it would be because they could neither accept nor reject a simple truth:  
  
Alastair had been both a Knight and a Lycan, and they had liked him just fine.  
  
The ones who accepted that would be forced to rethink their mission against the Lycans and possibly abandon the Order, shaken by the idea that they've killed men who were no different than themselves.  
  
The ones who rejected it would redouble their efforts against the Lycans, including the ones who appeared friendly or harmless, because they would _know_ better than to trust a well-spoken, charming Lycan.  
  
And in that moment, Grayson did, finally, understand why Alastair had done what he’d done; he did not excuse it, did not forgive it necessarily, but he did understand why, being what he was and raised as he was, he might be driven into the arms of people who would not kill or reject him for being only what he was born as. For a Lycan to live amongst men, who reviled his kind and wanted them destroyed, it must have been blissfully uncomplicated to be amongst his own.  
  
“I’d like to think I’d have given you a chance,” Grayson muttered, “But I can’t say for sure how I’d have felt. And I am sorry for that.”  
  
Alastair’s shoulders sank.  
  
Whether from relief or disappointment, Grayson had no idea.


	3. February

**_FEBRUARY_ **  
  
**[-The First Day of February, 1887-]**

* * *

  
“I think you’re going to live.”  
  
“Hoo-rah,” Alastair muttered.  
  
He was still pale, and his limbs trembled under his weight, but the infection seemed to have cleared up and the wounds were nearly closed. He’d even managed to walk for a few minutes without assistance. And thank God for that, because they’d nearly run out of material suitable for dressing a wound.  
  
“Alastair,” Grayson inquired as he re-wrapped the wounds, “Why didn’t the Blackwater take care of the injuries the way they should have? I expected a slow recovery, but the infection was far nastier than it ought to have been.”  
  
Alastair rubbed his eyes, for once seated on the edge of the bed instead of lying in it. “As much as I can tell, the Blackwater doesn’t work as effectively on half-breeds as it does on humans. In any case, Lycans are difficult to kill, and our bodies are generally decent at self-repair so long as the injury isn’t too grievous.”  
  
“Good to know.”  
  
“I assumed you knew it already.”  
  
“I’d mostly deduced you were a tough bunch of bastards after years of fighting.”  
  
Alastair smiled thinly, but not insincerely, at that. “We don’t withdraw off of it as badly either.” He paused, running a hand through his hair. “Though the fact that I’m not still sick or currently an old man leads me to believe you’ve slipped me some in the time that we’ve been here.”  
  
Grayson shrugged. “In your water. It was a damn sight easier than talking to you about it.” Alastair snickered. “We can find you a vial when we’ve left this place.” Grayson turned and scowled at the window. “Whenever that _bloody_ -well is.”  
  
“It shouldn’t be too much longer, assuming it doesn’t snow significantly again.”  
  
They sat in silence for a moment.  
  
“I take it you’ll return to your people when we get back to London- or at least once we’ve gotten out of here?” Grayson assumed that would be the case; at this point, turning up unannounced at Westminster would only raise suspicions about Alastair. More likely than not everyone thought he was dead now- or maybe, without a body, they’d come to the uncomfortable conclusion that their Knight Commander had absconded with the dreaded _convict_.  
  
Alastair nodded absently. “I plan on it, yes.” His gaze slid to Grayson. “And I expect you’ll seek out the Rebellion? You seemed on good terms with their leader.”  
  
“Good enough,” Grayson agreed neutrally. “Probably Tesla too.”  
  
Alastair flinched at the man’s name, and Grayson recalled that Tesla had been another victim of his deception, nearly a sacrifice for the silence Alastair had tried to ensure. “Yes, well, if and when you see him, do tell him I’m sorry about the…”  
  
Grayson cocked an eyebrow at him. “Attempted murder?”  
  
“Yes, that.”  
  
He didn’t know why- later he would chalk it up to the bizarre circumstances under which the conversation was taking place- but Galahad, somehow amused by Alastair’s phrasing, against his will started chortling lightly. The younger man looked at him oddly, but with a tinge of his own amusement, like he understood on a sort of primal level exactly why Galahad was laughing.  
  
“Yes,” He repeated dryly, “The whole ‘trying to murder you’ thing. I’ll send you both apology cards at the most convenient circumstance.”  
  
Grayson snorted sharply, and Alastair started laughing as well, wincing as it aggravated his still-healing injuries. “Spring for the expensive stationary, Alastair, I think you owe us that much.” Alastair laughed until he started coughing, and Grayson found himself with a lingering smile for a few hours more.  
  
Right until the sun set, and a fresh snowfall began.  
  
Grayson glared at Alastair from his place by the window. “You had to say it, didn’t you?”  
 

* * *

**[-The Ninth Day of February, 1887-]**

* * *

 

The snow was deep again.  
  
Much as Grayson hated making any extra noise- he was paranoid that some vampire or Lycan or other kind of half-breed would stumble upon him- he was obliged to keep cutting firewood, unless he and Alastair wanted to freeze to death before the bloody snow melted. So on this particular morning, he found himself with a well-worn axe that looked dangerously close to falling apart, hacking at the thinner trees that would yield a fair amount of wood but not take as long to cut.  
  
He’d been at it for nearly an hour, tips of his ears and nose completely numb, when a voice came from behind: “Need a hand?”  
  
Grayson nearly jumped clean out of his coat. Alastair had stayed inside for the last month or so, never having the strength to venture outside, and damn it, how had Grayson _not_ heard him approaching?  
  
He turned around and saw the younger man standing with a forced nonchalance, as though he hadn’t been virtually bed-ridden for the last month. Part of the responsibility that came with being a reasonably senior member of the Knights was that Grayson, as Galahad, had learned to recognize when one of the headstrong initiates was masking their pain or overstating their remaining stamina.  
  
He’d never had to call Alastair out on it, though.  
  
Grayson shook his head, heart still pounding. “Christ, Alastair, go back inside. You’re not well.”  
  
But Alastair scoffed. “I’m not an invalid, Galahad.”  
  
“You are, actually; I know you were barely conscious when we got out of London, but I was practically dragging you through the streets because you were half-bleeding to death. And your wounds still haven’t completely healed-” Grayson buried the axe in the trunk of the tree, “-never mind the fact that you’re still pale as death-” Another strike; one more should fell it, “-and shaking like a wet dog-”  
  
“Now _that’s_ just offensive,” Alastair remarked wryly.  
  
Grayson struck the tree one more time, and the upper half came down almost silently into the snow. “My point,” He said, “Is that you are, in fact, still an invalid. Sick men and cold weather do not mix well.”  
  
“Yes, _mother_ ,” Alastair snipped, before calmly reaching down with one hand and lifting the tree trunk onto his shoulder as though it weighed half what it did. And maybe it was easier to lift for a Lycan instead of a human, but this Lycan was injured, and Grayson followed him as he dragged the trunk back to the side of their temporary home. By the time he’d reached the log-pile, Grayson could see a few spots of red in the snow, warm blood melting cold ice.  
  
Alastair dropped the trunk, and when he faced Grayson, he was pale again, but still trying to feign wellness. “And somehow I managed not to collapse.”  
  
“Mm, but you did bleed everywhere,” Grayson drawled, exaggerating slightly but still pointing out the blood to the other man.  
  
“ _Bugger_ ,” Alastair hissed. “That could bring animals around They’re starving this time of year.”  
  
“We should hope so, we’re running low on food- but this is what happens when you try to show off,” Grayson clucked, wanting badly to say ‘I told you so’ but not wanting to be the sort of person that says ‘I told you so’. Sebastien had mastered that art with a stunning grace: All he had to do was _look_ at you, and you could feel him projecting the words ‘I told you so, you fucking idiot’ onto you like a witch casting a spell. It was magnificent to watch when you weren’t on the receiving end of it. “Come inside, let me get a look at that.”  
  
But Alastair shook his head, settling down uneasily on the doorstep, leaning back against the door. “No. This is the first time I’ve breathed fresh air in over a month, and I’m not running back inside because I’ve popped a few stitches.”  
  
“If you get infected again because of it, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Grayson remarked. He then went about hacking at the wood, forming it into appropriate-sized logs for the fire. Alastair stayed where he was, and Grayson looked up from time to time to make sure he hadn’t passed out or looked in danger of doing so. And for a time, it was silent, which meant that Grayson had a bit too much time to think; and since his only person to talk to- conveniently, someone who inspired a great many queries- was right nearby, inevitably he felt compelled to speak.  
  
“A question,” Grayson said, digging the axe into a log for a moment, and Alastair groaned. “What?”  
  
“You’ve so many questions,” The other man muttered. “And I find myself unable to answer them all.”  
  
“This one should be within your power. Why did you agree to go with me to the United India House? If I’d gone alone I would have probably been killed in the process, and your problem would be solved.”  
  
Alastair sighed heavily. “I went because you boxed me into a corner. You may recall that I tried to persuade you _not_ to go to the United India Company House, but you made it clear you meant to do it with or without my help. You were a dog scenting a fox, and you weren’t about to let it go.” Alastair was quiet for a long moment. “I know you won’t believe it, Gray, but it wasn’t personal. I didn’t want it to come to that- I’ve served with you for years, and the idea of killing you, or leading you into a trap, made me sick. I was doing what I felt I had to- and in my defense, I still held out some hope that if I was there, I might be able to lead you away from anything ugly.”  
  
Grayson stared at the snow. “Why? What did you get from working with Hastings? What benefit did you receive from protecting him and turning on the rest of us? Especially Tesla- he hadn’t even _done_ anything to you.” They’d been civil up to this point and Grayson really didn’t want to start an argument by being accusatory again, but the questions were eating at him.  
  
Alastair didn’t meet his eye. “Enough that I considered the relationship too vital to break.”  
  
“Even in the face of the Whitechapel killings.”  
  
“Also in my defense, I only found out about that a week before we infiltrated the Company House. I was still considering my options.”  
  
“Like what? What options?”  
  
“I can’t tell you _everything_ , Gray,” Alastair retorted, impatient. “I don’t know your mind any more than you know mine. Would you be so willing to tell me details about the Rebellion and their movements? I have no way of knowing whether or not it will come back to bite me later.”  
  
Grayson blew out a cold breath. “Fair enough.”  
  
The reality of the situation hit him with sudden clarity: Though they were allies for now, in this strange, isolated place where their two selves made up the population, there would come a day, sooner than later, when they very well might find themselves mortal enemies again. Alastair was right; if he told something sensitive about the half-breeds to Grayson, Grayson might very well capitalize on it later if he needed to. And likewise, he would never tell Alastair that Lakshmi had Blackwater, or what little details he’d since learned of the Rebellion.  
  
For all of their time together, and for all of the civility they had now, the fact of it was that they could not trust each other.  
  
Because one day, they may very well end up regretting it. 

* * *

**[-The Fifteenth Day of February, 1887-]**

* * *

  
**_KRRCK!_**  
  
“ _Christ!_ ”  
  
Grayson’s leg burned with pain, and he tried to maneuver it back through the hole that had just inexplicably appeared in the floor. He felt torn skin catch on the splinters and hissed.  
  
Alastair jumped up and hurried over, examining the hole. “Hold still,” He instructed, and then carefully began pushing and breaking pieces of wood away so that Grayson could pull his leg back up. “Get the splinters out before you take the Blackwater, unless you want to be digging them out later.”  
  
“This isn’t my first time drinking Blackwater,” Grayson snapped irritably before pulling his pant-leg up to check the damage. It was significant: There were plenty of little scratches, but there were also two- make that three- larger gouges that would definitely need Blackwater intervention. “Damn it. God Damn it. I don’t know who built this house, but they did a shit job at it!”  
  
A logical, uninjured Grayson who had not spent a month and a half in said house would have concluded that it wasn’t necessarily the builder’s fault that the house was in disrepair, given how long it seemed to have been unoccupied. But Grayson was crabby, and being in pain made it worse, so he blamed the former occupants, he blamed Alastair, he blamed God, he blamed the Queen- he was in the mood to shift blame onto everyone, so he did.  
  
It took time to clean the splinters out of the wounds. Alastair helped, using a snow-soaked rag (one thing they had yet to run low on was water) to clean the blood away as best he could. Grayson flinched and growled whenever a bit of wood was removed, and was relieved when Alastair said, “Alright, I think we’ve got all of it. Drink.” He laid down while the Blackwater did its work, staring at the ceiling and generally feeling as though his mind was going into some sort of a tail-spin.  
  
Apart from basic things to keep the two of them alive- tending to Alastair’s injuries, finding food, and cutting wood- what had Grayson done in the last month and a half? It had been a month and a half of pure hell followed by a month and a half of cloying boredom mixed with an insidious tension that he had very little ability to do anything about.  
  
This was _maddening_. He almost missed getting shot.  
  
“You know something,” Alastair said, and Grayson sighed.  
  
“What?”  
  
Alastair was dumping the tainted water out the window. After, he rolled the bit of blood-stained fabric between his fingers for a moment, and then said, “I don’t think it was cholera that caused this little neighborhood of houses to become deserted.”  
  
Grayson sensed something in Alastair’s body-language that betrayed a tension, an anxiety. “I suppose that’s good news for us, depending on what you actually think drove them off.”  
  
When Alastair looked up, it was with a thin smile. “I’m reasonably certain this house belonged to a Lycan.” He paused. “Several Lycans, in fact.”  
  
Surprise, Grayson sat up straighter. “How can you tell?”  
  
“I can smell them.”  
  
That’s right- Lycans had a superior sense of smell, more like a dog’s than a man’s. If a Lycan family had lived in this house before, it made sense that he could recognize the scent of his own kind. Hell, Grayson’s nose wasn’t as good, but he could recognize the smell of a Lycan too if it had been around recently. They usually smelled like wet dog, which was how the Knights usually identified their homes or dens.  
  
“Several Lycans,” Grayson repeated.  
  
Alastair nodded. “Several. Probably a family. The fact that I can smell them at all says they probably lived here for decades, and they left… Within the last decade, I expect.” He looked out the window. “We’ve never done a raid in this area, have we?”  
  
Grayson thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of. You’re the Knight Commander- wouldn’t you know if we- if the Order had?”  
  
Alastair shook his head slowly, vaguely. “Maybe…”  
  
Grayson thought he might continue, but Alastair’s mind was elsewhere, on the Lycans who had lived here years before. And if his mind was going to the same place as Grayson’s he was probably considering that they had not left of their own accord- if, in fact, they had left at all, and had not been killed and buried in the woods.  
__  
Or maybe, he considered, _their bones are right out in the yard, and we just haven’t seen them because of the snow._  
  
The thought made him shudder.  
  
It made him feel like he’d walked across someone’s grave.  
 

* * *

**[-The Twenty-Sixth Day of February, 1887-]**

* * *

  
“Why did you let me live?”  
  
Grayson turned and looked to Alastair.  
  
The Knight Commander had always, as a habit, made a point of looking people in the eye when he asked them questions- especially when they were difficult questions that he wanted a truthful answer to. That was part of what made him a good Commander: He didn’t shy away from things that could be dangerous to him, whether they were physical or emotional in nature.  
  
But right now Alastair wasn’t looking at him. He sitting on one of the chair at the table, staring at the fire. The expression on his face was almost completely neutral, save for something a little… _Dark_ on the edges.  
  
That old, nagging concern came back in full force: Alastair was stronger now. If he wanted a fight with Grayson, he could very easily pick one, and chances were, he’d win it. It was so damn hard to tell what was on the man’s mind- was he mostly grateful that Grayson hadn’t killed him, and would leave him be unless threatened? Or would he see Grayson as a worthy threat and eliminate him at the first available opportunity so as to save himself the trouble later?  
  
God, he just wanted the tension resolved. He was tired of sleeping with one eye open.  
  
“I suppose,” Grayson murmured, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the table, “That I couldn’t bring myself to kill a man I’ve known for centuries, even if he’s betrayed me and resigned me to a slow, torturous death.” He paused. “You were so bloody _fine_ with it as well- dying, I mean. You were just going to let me shoot you.”  
  
“I was trying to have an iota of dignity.”  
  
“Sod dignity. You can reclaim dignity, but you can’t come back from the dead.”  
  
A strange, grim smirk unfurled over Alastair’s face. “Careful, Gray,” He said softly, looking Grayson dead in the eye. “You’re sliding. One minute it’s ‘sod dignity, survival is more important’, and then the next thing you know, it’s ‘sod everything, survival is more important than anything’. I would know.”  
  
“ _How_ do you know?”  
  
But Alastair wouldn’t tell him.


	4. March

**_MARCH_ **   
  
**[-The Third Day of March, 1887-]**

* * *

  
“I might be able to hunt.”  
  
Grayson looked up and saw Alastair staring pensively out the window. “You think so?”  
  
Alastair flexed his fingers. “I do.”  
  
A spike of wariness flirted up from Grayson’s sense of self-preservation, mostly because hunting involved guns and knives and, for the last two months (dear _God_ two months in that bloody house) he had had complete dominion over all of the weapons available to them.  
  
Then he remembered that Alastair didn’t actually need a gun to kill him.  
  
“Alright then, let me reload.”  
  
“That’s fine,” Alastair said mildly, not looking away from the window. “But I don’t need a weapon.”  
  
Grayson paused, not understanding.  
  
But then he saw Alastair’s eyes flicker yellow in the reflection of the glass, and realized that Alastair didn’t need a gun to hunt for the same reason he didn’t need one to be dangerous to Grayson.  
  
“Mind turning around?”  
  
“Seeing you transform doesn’t bother me,” Grayson said.  
  
“I figured as much,” Alastair said, shucking off his coat. “But unless I want to destroy the one outfit of clothing I have available to me, I need to strip, and unlike some half-breeds I could mention, I still have a sense of modesty.”  
  
Grayson assumed he was referring to Hastings and said nothing.  
  
The sound of Alastair transforming when his back was turned was making Grayson’s heart beat erratically; every fiber of his being was screaming _danger! Imminent danger! Fight or flight! Fight or flight!_ This was the first time he’d ever been in a room with a fully-transformed Lycan that he wasn’t trying to kill, and his body simply wasn’t accustomed to it.  
  
Nor was his mind.  
  
When Alastair lumbered into view, easily two feet taller than usual, a chill ran down Grayson’s spine. The last time he had seen Alastair transformed, the man had been trying to kill him.  
  
“What are you waiting for?” Alastair’s voice came out as a low, guttural rumble. Then his lips curled back into what Grayson realized was a (literally) wolfish grin, revealing a mouth full of dangerously sharp teeth. “Not afraid of me, are you, Galahad?”  
  
“That’s not funny, Alastair,” Grayson whispered, and was suddenly very aware that he was clutching the arms of the chair in a white-knuckled grip. “That’s not funny at all. Stop it.” He was deeply ashamed to hear such naked fear in his voice, but he couldn't seem to hold it back.  
  
The smile faded, and for one brief, split second, Alastair’s composure slipped.  
  
And in that moment, even though he was in Lycan form, he did look truly and genuinely hurt.  
  
“I smell a deer,” He said. “You can stay here. I’ll get it.”  
  
“No-” Grayson stood up, but Alastair held up a (clawed, hairy, over-sized) hand.  
  
“I’ll be five minutes. I don’t want you to…” He shook his head. “Just stay. I’ll be right back.” He slunk off through the doorway before Grayson could protest.  
  
Once he’d left the room, Grayson’s body seemed to relax somewhat- but he ached all over, sore from how literally, physically tense he’d been to be near a transformed Lycan. For a moment, all he could do was try to get his heart to beat normally and his limbs to unlock themselves.  
  
And once he had, Grayson groaned and covered his eyes as he remembered the hurt he’d seen in Alastair’s.  
  
 _It’s Alastair. It’s just Alastair._  
  
But it wasn’t _just_ Alastair anymore. The form Alastair took as a Lycan was a form Grayson associated with fear, pain, and general misery. Alastair had nearly killed him in that form (though, in fairness, he’d tried to kill him in human-form as well). There were hundreds of years of associations Grayson had with a transformed Lycan’s appearance, and absolutely none of them were positive.  
  
But still…  
  
This was exactly why Alastair hadn’t told anyone.  
  
He’d feared their reactions.  
  
He’d feared their judgment.  
  
He’d feared their _fear._  
  
And Grayson, however unintentionally, had just confirmed that that was the reaction Alastair would receive from his friends and colleagues if they knew what he was. Without meaning to, Grayson realized that he may have just brought a longtime nightmare of Alastair’s to life.  
  
There was a noise outside the window, and Grayson stood up and walked over to look outside. True to his word, Alastair was dragging a dead deer into the yard, dragging it into the small shed near the woodpile. Afterwards, he rolled himself in the snow- it was such a wolfish thing to do that it baffled Grayson a bit, until he realized that Alastair was more or less cleaning the deer’s blood off him.  
  
Then he reentered the house.  
  
Grayson took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He would not panic the way he had before. He would not embarrass himself, and he would not make Alastair feel badly about appearing the way he did. Alastair had committed a fair number of heinous crimes, but being born a Lycan wasn’t one of them; as long as his intentions were good, his appearance shouldn’t matter.  
  
But as it was, Grayson wouldn’t be taking in Alastair’s Lycan form again tonight. He started when Alastair came back into the room wrapped in an old curtain- one of the few to not be turned into bandaging during their earlier weeks there- and breezed by Grayson without meeting his eye.  
  
“The deer’s in the shed, it’s barred, I doubt anything will bother it but if something does let me know, I can take care of it.” His voice was flat and unemotional, and it was only when he reached for his clothing that Grayson quickly turned around.  
  
Alastair had transformed outside of the room so as not to frighten Grayson again.  
  
And something about that shamed Grayson even more than being so blatantly frightened of him in the first place.  
  
“Alastair.”  
  
No response. He could still hear fabric shuffling, so he didn’t turn around. “ _Alastair_ ,” he repeated.  
  
The noise came to a stop. All he could hear was Alastair’s suspiciously heavy-breathing. Then, after a moment or two, “What?”  
  
Grayson struggled for a moment, but then finally said, “I’m sorry.”  
  
 _I’m sorry that I reacted so badly._  
  
 _I’m sorry that you spent so long thinking people would react badly to knowing you’re a Lycan._  
  
 _I’m sorry I just affirmed that for you._  
  
Alastair didn’t speak for a time. There was a little more noise, more fabric-on-fabric, but no words, until-  
  
“So am I.”  
  
When Grayson finally built up the courage to turn around, Alastair was in bed, a sheet over his head.

* * *

**[-The Thirteenth Day of March, 1887-]**

* * *

  
Apparently, they were pretending the incident from the week before hadn’t happened. The next morning Alastair had woken up and spoke to Grayson as though nothing at all was wrong, and Grayson played into it, concerned that failing to would bring them back to that damnable silence they’d had for the first few weeks.  
  
But it was awkward.  
  
Alastair avoided Grayson’s eyes and spoke with a forced business-like voice, one that said, ‘Tension? What tension? Everything’s fine.’  
  
And Grayson, damn him, still felt guilty. One might wonder why he would waste time feeling guilty for a man who’d done the things that Alastair had, but the simple fact of it was that fearing or shunning Alastair because he was a Lycan- a truth that was ugly and unavoidable when he was transformed- was wrong. True, Alastair had done terrible things, but Grayson hadn’t been wary when Alastair had transformed, hadn’t been thinking about how he must watch his back and be cautious in the event of trickery- he’d been _paralyzed_ by a fear that came from instinct rather than logic.  
  
It was logical to be wary of Alastair; his actions had proven he couldn’t be trusted.  
  
But Grayson had been reacting to the Lycan. The proof in the pudding was that he was generally fine when Alastair _looked_ human- the anxiety and fear had dissipated and hadn’t returned since Alastair had returned to human form- but wasn’t when Alastair looked like the Lycan he was.  
  
Which was exactly what Alastair said he’d have done if he’d known before this all happened.  
  
And so yes, Grayson did feel guilt, did feel a sense of shame that he’d been unable to control his fear. He was supposed to be better than that- he _thought_ he was better than that.  
  
But he wasn’t.  
  
“The snow’s melting,” Alastair remarked. “It shouldn’t be long before we can leave.”  
  
“You think they’ve lifted the martial law by now?”  
  
“Maybe.” Alastair tapped a finger on the windowsill. “The authorities and the Order will have had plenty of time to comb Whitechapel by now, as well as any other areas of interest. They’ll have either missed or weeded out anyone they were hoping to find by now.”  
  
Lakshmi had already been in the process of evacuating her Rebels when Grayson had made his way back to Westminster to get Tesla; chances were, most of the remaining Rebels were out and away before the search began.  
  
The question that Grayson suspected was going through Alastair’s mind, however, was how many half-breeds had been ousted? How many had been caught and imprisoned, or killed- especially now that the Chancellor knew his son had been giving them aid?  
  
Another question, even more grueling, occurred to Grayson: Hastings, by this point, had not heard from Alastair for nearly three months. Chances were, he would assume Alastair dead- a possibility that may have already been supplied by the Lord Chancellor to cover the truth. Alastair had had some sort of ongoing agreement with Hastings, one that he’d, evidently, been desperate not to break. If he was being honest about his intentions, Grayson was inclined to suspect that the agreement provided some sort of protection for the Lycans of London.  
  
In any case… What had become of that agreement now that Alastair was, for the moment, likely presumed dead? Would Hastings continue to uphold his side of the bargain?  
 _  
I doubt that_ , Grayson thought, eyeing Alastair and noticing that the tapping had stopped and he was now digging his nails into the wood. _I doubt that very much._  
 

* * *

**[-The Nineteenth Day of March, 1887-]**

  
It was getting warmer.  
  
And the snow, thank _God_ , was disappearing.  
  
“Lucan!” Grayson kicked himself; his voice sounded much louder in the silence of this isolated area than it ever had in London.  
  
Alastair appeared at the window, looked down, and raised an eyebrow at him. “What is it?”  
  
Grayson gave a light kick to the bulkhead door he’d found. “They have a basement.”  
  
He waited for Alastair to join him, and they pried open the doors that were still a bit frozen, having been buried under nearly a foot of snow for the last few months. A puff of dust and dirt flew up into their faces, and Grayson’s eyes burned; he heard Alastair coughing.  
  
Once the cloud had cleared, they looked down into the dark room below.  
  
“Think there’s enough light for us to see down there? Or should I get a match?” Grayson asked.  
  
“Already brought one,” Alastair remarked, pulling a packet out of his hip-pocket. He struck one, and they descended into the basement. Grayson followed Alastair, keeping one hand on his shoulder so as not to stumble. He was starting to suspect that Alastair’s sense of sight was as good as his sense of smell, because he looked into the seemingly indiscriminate darkness and said, “Oh, good.”  
  
“What?”  
  
A second light appeared. Then a third.  
  
There were candles in the basement. And crates, and logs (of course, after weeks of having to cut their own), and vials (perfect, they could use some for Alastair's Blackwater), and a few sheets of metal, and…  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Grayson remarked, half-laughing, stepping over to a rack that lined the wall. “They have wine.”  
  
Alastair shook his head, but he was smiling too. “You’re kidding.”  
  
“I’m not.” Grayson pulled a bottle off the rack and blew the dust off, then held it up for the other man to see.  
  
“Oh my,” Alastair chuckled, taking the bottle and examining the label. “Not bad wine, either.” He managed to wrestle the cork out and took a sniff; then, a small sip. “Not bad at all.” He proffered the bottle to Grayson questioningly.  
  
Grayson eyed the bottle. “I don’t know,” He said. “Vulnerable as we are, I’m not too keen to lose my senses right now.”  
  
“We’ve been stuck here for months,” Alastair snorted. “I don’t see any harm in getting a little senseless for a night.”  
  
Grayson honestly didn’t have it in him to argue.  
  
And so they brought a few bottles upstairs and drank.  
  
Alastair was right; after months of agonizingly bleak reality, it was nice to slip into an alcohol-induced complacency. After a time, Grayson felt pleasantly fuzzy and light-headed, though not completely senseless. Alastair sat across from him at the table, and for maybe half an hour, they didn’t speak; for once, they had a worthwhile distraction that didn’t involve banal conversation.  
  
“This is nice,” Grayson murmured after a time. “Can’t remember the last time I was drunk.”  
  
“Nor I,” Alastair yawned. “It’s harder for Lycans to get drunk. We have to drink more to do it.” As he said it, Grayson realized that Alastair was actually starting in on his second bottle  
  
“That explains more than I thought it would,” Grayson sighed, remembering the odd celebration where a few Knights had made well-meaning fools of themselves whilst the Knight Commander stood by, composed as ever despite having drunk nearly as much as they had. At the time, everyone had simply assumed that Sir Lucan could handle his alcohol well, or that maybe he had been more reserved in his drinking than they’d realized. All it had done was contribute to his reputation for professionalism and composure.  
  
“There’s nothing more entertaining than watching everyone else get completely _smashed_ around you, and being the only one to remember it all in the morning,” Alastair said, grinning. “Still, I like the relief of being mindless every now and then.”  
  
“Given what our lives have been, I can’t blame you.”  
  
The grin slipped away like rain on glass, and Alastair stared at him pensively. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, slowly, “about something.”  
  
“What’s that?” Grayson rumbled.  
  
“It’s a… If you’d indulge me. I want to try something.”  
  
Grayson felt a tingle of concern. “Try what?”  
  
Alastair took a swig from his bottle, and then stared into the corner for a time. “Shut your eyes,” he said, finally.  
  
“The last time I was half-drunk and someone told me to shut my eyes, Gawain shoved a live chicken into my face and tried to make me kiss it,” Grayson said flatly.  
  
The seriousness on Alastair’s face disappeared for a moment as he chuckled. “I seem to be lacking adequate access to any farm fowl, Galahad.” He grew somber again. “Just do it. I mean no harm.”  
  
And wary though he was, Grayson complied and shut his eyes.  
  
“I want you to imagine that you’re a normal man. You live in the country, away from most people, and you know little of the world beyond your property.”  
  
Grayson tried. He tried to draw upon the few scant memories he had before Sebastien had taken him in and started training him; because when he was young, barely a teenager, he’d been the very sort of person Alastair was asking him to pretend to be.  
“Now, imagine one day, out of nowhere, you see two armies in the distance, marching into battle against each other. One is made up of men who look very much like you do: They wear similar clothes, similar hairstyles, their skin and eyes and bodies are much   
like yours.” Alastair paused, and Grayson heard him swallow- he’d taken a much longer gulp of wine this time. When he spoke again, his voice had the very beginnings of a slur to it. “And now, imagine that the other army does _not_ look like you. They can look however you like- but they don’t look a thing like you do. Maybe they’re too tall. Maybe they’ve got claws. Maybe they’ve got red eyes and look like lizards. Either way.” Another pause, another swallow. “So my question, Galahad, is…” Alastair drawled, “…Whose side are you on?”  
  
Grayson thought about it for a moment.  
  
“I know nothing of either of these people.”  
  
“You don’t,” Alastair agreed, and his tone suggested that that was exactly what he’d wanted Grayson to say.  
  
“How can I pick a side?”  
  
“I’m not asking _you_ to pick a side, Sir Galahad,” Alastair corrected. “I’m asking the young, ignorant man that you probably _were_ once upon a time to pick a side. I’m asking you, in this situation, if you had no background information about either side, which would you be more _likely_ to support? The people who look just like you, or the ones who look strange and maybe a bit frightening to you?”  
  
Grayson finally opened his eyes, and looked at Alastair pointedly (noting that the man’s bottle was nearly finished). “This is a trick question. You know the answer already.”  
  
Alastair smirked at him, and it was lopsided, drunken. “I _do_ know the answer, Gray. Any person with no prior information will generally choose to support people who look like them, because they’re _familiar_.” He finished off the bottle and dropped it to the ground, where it bounced on the dirt and rolled away. “And really, you could be right- they could be the heroes of the story. Or they could be the villains, and those monstrous looking things on the other side of the field could be the good ones. Or maybe…” He ran a hand through his hair and shut his eyes. “…Or maybe they’re both bastards. Maybe the worst that either side has to offer of their own people. And maybe you watch them fight this brutal, ugly battle, and you come to the conclusion that the people they’re part of are evil beasts you never want to meet. Good policy, isn’t it? To send the biggest and the meanest to fight.”  
  
“You’re not making as much sense as you did before, Alastair,” Grayson said softly.  
  
“My _point_ …” Alastair slurred, “…Christ, what’s my point? My point… Right. My point is that to the casual observer, who knows nothing of half-breeds or the Order, maybe we all look like bastards. We’re the ones fighting the war, aren’t we? You’ve no idea what the average Lycan family looks like, and I- well, I was raised by humans, so I’m a bad example. But there are plenty of Lycans who spend most of their time in their dens and their packs, and don’t know humans very well.” He gestured vaguely towards the window. “They live in places like this: Where they can be alone and live without interference or persecution. Ne’er the twain shall meet.”  
   
Even though Grayson’s mind wasn’t up to snuff either, he got the gist.  
 _  
Humans know little of the Lycans who don’t fight the wars, and Lycans know little of humans beyond the ones who hunt, persecute, and fear them._  
  
Getting drunk was a terrible idea.  
 

* * *

**[-The Twenty-Second Day of March, 1887-]**

* * *

  
“ _Gray!_ ”  
  
Grayson woke up with a start.  
  
Alastair was shaking him urgently, kneeling next to the bed. Grayson sat up, and even before Alastair could say anything more, he heard voices from outside.  
  
“They just got here,” Alastair whispered. “I think they’re Rebels.”  
  
That ought to have made Grayson relax, but the only Rebels who knew who he was and trusted him were Lakshmi and Devi- Tesla, too, if he’d formally joined up with them. If anyone but them were outside, this could get ugly.  
  
And if they _were_ outside, it would still probably be ugly because Alastair was there.  
  
“Whatever you do,” Grayson whispered fiercely, “Don’t call me Galahad. If they are Rebels, they can’t know we were Knights.”  
  
“I thought you were on good terms with the Rebels?” Alastair hissed, stepping back as Grayson jumped out of bed and grabbed his coat.  
  
“Only a few of them! I’ve only really _met_ three Rebels so far, and Hastings killed one of them!” Grayson responded, pulling on his boots. “I don’t know if Lakshmi will be with them, so just be _bloody_ careful and don’t give any hint that we were ever members of the Order.”  
  
“So we’re just going to walk out there?” Alastair nearly squawked in disbelief.  
  
“Do you have a better idea?” Grayson retorted. “If we try to run or hide, we look suspicious. If we go out and just pretend to be a couple of travelers, they may just let us leave.” They’d been planning on leaving on the first, but if the snow had thinned enough for the Rebels to get here, it was thin enough for them to leave in. “Just stay calm and don’t do anything stupid.”  
  
Alastair looked hesitant, but eventually he sighed and shook his head. “We’re going to get killed,” He grunted.  
  
Grayson stepped outside first.  
  
There were maybe twenty Rebels setting up in the middle of the cove of houses. Grayson didn’t recognize any of them; but almost immediately when he stepped over the threshold, the low chatter of conversation they were having cut off abruptly. A few stood and lifted their guns, and Grayson quickly put up his hands. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you,” He said easily, stepping fully outside. He felt rather than saw Alastair follow from behind. “We were just passing through, and-”  
  
Grayson stopped.  
  
Lakshmi emerged from the house across the way. At first she looked surprised; then a wry smile formed on her lips. “Knight,” She said smoothly. “I’ll be damned. You _did_ get out of London.”  
  
“I did,” Grayson agreed, stepping towards her. As he did, however, he must have moved enough for her to see Alastair, because recognition flashed in her eyes and she jerked back.  
  
“What is _he_ doing here?” She hissed, eyeing the Lycan coldly as Grayson brought his hands up plaintively again.  
  
Alastair, perhaps more out of deference to Grayson than to Lakshmi, said nothing, keeping his arms folded behind his back and his posture unthreatening.  
  
Grayson blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s complicated, Lakshmi.”  
  
“That’s one word for it, I suppose,” Alastair muttered.  
  
Lakshmi hesitated, but then motioned to the other Rebels who were watching the scene unfold. “Go about your business,” She snapped. She jerked her head towards the side of the house with the bulkhead, and Grayson and Alastair followed her. “Explain,” She spat when they were reasonably certain no one was listening.  
  
“We called a truce in order to escape the city,” Grayson said, though he knew it was bending the truth. There had been no truce; Alastair had been at his mercy and he’d refused to finish him off. But given the circumstances, he wasn’t sure Lakshmi would be able to understand why it was that he couldn’t do it. She had never known Sir Lucan, Knight Commander- certainly not for the centuries Grayson had. “The Chancellor knows of his betrayal, and we are both fugitives of the Order now. We’ve been stuck here by the snow ever since.”  
  
Lakshmi’s sharp, shrewd eyes locked onto Grayson’s, and he kept his expression steady. She was a clever woman; if he wasn’t careful, she could sniff out the untruthfulness of his words. “I see,” She said, slowly, eyes jumping back to Alastair. “How is your _friend_ , Hastings?”  
  
“We aren’t friends,” Alastair responded flatly.  
  
Lakshmi sniffed, smiling bitterly. “That isn’t the impression I got at the Company House.”  
  
“Your impression is incorrect,” Alastair retorted.  
  
“That has yet to be seen.” Lakshmi looked to Grayson, eyes dark. “Do you mean to stay with us?”  
  
“If you’d have me,” Grayson said carefully.  
  
“Then he goes. I’ll not have an associate of Hastings amongst my men.”  
  
Grayson nodded slowly. “Right, I understand.” He glanced at Alastair, whose expression was completely neutral. “If we could have a moment, Lakshmi?”  
  
Lakshmi nodded, eyeing Alastair like a… Well, like she might eye a wolf. She then stalked off towards the other Rebels without looking back.  
  
Grayson turned to Alastair, heaving a long sigh. “Jesus.”  
  
“She’s charming,” Alastair remarked snidely.  
  
“You’re one to talk,” Grayson grunted. Then he softened. “Alastair…”  
  
Alastair held up a hand, a strange mimicry of what he’d done the night he’d transformed into his Lycan form. “Don’t, Galahad. It’s fine.” He smiled, but it wasn’t convincing. “We meant to part ways anyway, didn’t we?”  
  
“At London,” Grayson said pointedly. London, where they could both be reassured that the other was safe enough to be left alone; London where they’d be on familiar, equal ground. Grayson felt the same, uneasy feeling that he’d had when he’d been forced to choose between killing or sparing Alastair. It felt wrong to ask Alastair to leave; it felt like shunning him, casting him out. At the same time, Lakshmi had every right to demand it; Alastair had led them into a trap that had nearly gotten her killed, and he’d assisted Hastings’s plan to ship half-breeds to the Americas. She had every right to be angry and suspicious and intolerant of his company.  
  
“You can get back on your own?” Grayson inquired.  
  
Alastair scoffed. “Please. I’ve been a Knight nearly as long as you, Galahad. And I’m fully healed, so I have the stamina of an Elder Lycan. I can get to London and find my people just fine.” The smile flickered. “But it’s not my desire for us to be enemies, Gray,” he said.  
  
“Nor is it mine,” Grayson responded.  
  
“But I must protect my kind.”  
  
“As long as the protecting of your kind does not involve the slaughtering of innocent humans, I have no quarrel with that.”  
  
Alastair nodded. “In which case, we should not be enemies.”

Grayson managed a weak smile. “Right.”  
  
They were quiet for a moment. The sound of the Rebels working in the background was the only other thing to be heard.  
  
“Thank you, Gray,” Alastair’s eyes were painfully sincere. “It’s less that I’m glad to be alive and more that I’m glad you…” He paused, and then shook his head. “I don’t mean to be emotional. Just- thank you.”  
  
Grayson hesitated. Then, before he could change his mind, he stepped forward and embraced Alastair, who returned it only after a brief pause.  
  
“I hope one day we may meet under better circumstances, Alastair. I hope we might know that true peace you mentioned before.”  
  
“As do I, brother.”  
  
After a time, they parted, and Alastair straightened, fingering the vial of Blackwater beneath his shirt; Grayson had used some of his own to fill it with the vials they’d found in the basement. He took a moment to orient himself, figuring out which way London was, and then said, “Goodbye, Gray.”  
  
Grayson nodded. “Goodbye, Alastair.”  
  
Alastair smiled again; still weakly, but genuinely. What else was there to say? They'd had three months to talk. Now there was only the inevitable.

He started walking, and Grayson didn’t move until he was out of sight.

-End  
 


End file.
